How to Find a Mentor

Mentor relationships in business can be one of the most beneficial connections that you may make, but approaching someone about helping to advance your career can be intimidating. You can learn how to more easily enter a mentoring relationship with the help of this guide.

Why Do I Want a Mentor?

A mentor is someone that you trust, someone who you can confide in and learn from. Typically, this person has a significant amount of experience and knows the ins and outs of the industry.
But regardless of why you want this type of arrangement, there is a very good reason to have one.

Being able to turn to someone for assistance and advice certainly has its advantages, and oftentimes some of the best networking connections can be made through these relationships.

Before you can enjoy all the benefits that having a coach can offer, you must learn how to set up a relationship such as this.
Understanding the way these connections are made is important and when you find the method to make connections that works best for you, you can begin your search!

Choose the Best Mentoring Style

They will have their own style, after all each person has a completely different personality with varying circumstances.
But one aspect is similar, they are well versed in their field and have a desire to help you.

Some sources to locate mentors are as follows:

Academic Institutions:
Professors, teachers, or teacher's assistants. This style works best particularly if you are attempting to advance your academic record.

Personal Relationships:
Local business owners, neighbors, family members. Use this style to learn how a person that you know on a personal level achieves success not by their specific actions but by their methods.

Professional Relationships:
Managers, coworkers, established clients. This arrangement is with someone who you may want to directly follow their actions and get to know their network, as they are most likely well-versed in their profession.

Each mentor is going to have a particular effect on your apprenticeship.
Regardless of who you choose, make sure that they have relevant experience to help you toward the advancement of your career.

Discover What You Want
As you enter this type of relationship, you must be certain about what you want to learn and get out of your time with this person.
In order to realize what type of person will help you learn you must evaluate yourself to determine what you want.

Write down what you need to work on in your career, your weaknesses, etc. Then, brainstorm to think of ways that you can improve yourself. You cannot rely on them to fix all of your problems.
This situation works best when you put just as much effort, if not more, into fixing your issues as your mentor.

At this point after scrutinizing what you want from not only yourself, but from them, you should be able to more cohesively narrow down the best fit for you.

Communication is Key
Now that you would like to find a specific type of person to help you with your endeavors, get to work finding that person. Make a list of everyone that you know who could help you.
Even if it is someone you aren't considering that person may have an extensive network of people that would be perfect for you.

This person must be someone you truly respect and admire. It can also be someone with whom you already have a great business relationship.
The strength of your relationship will make it all the easier when you have a conversation about this topic.

You cannot just come out and ask someone: “Would you be my mentor?” that turns people away and puts pressure on them.
Communicate to them that you admire their work and would like to learn more about how to be like them, but not in such an abrupt way.

You may subtly comment on an aspect of their work that they excel in.
If that aspect happens to be one of your weaknesses, you could say something like “I really like how well you are able to speak with clients, would you mind if you gave me some pointers?”
Simple questions like this will flatter the person and potentially make them want to help you.

After reading this article about how to find a mentor and after you have entered into a productive relationship, keep a regular schedule with the person, and maintain consistent communication.
You won't regret your decision to become trained in this fashion, hopefully it will be very beneficial for you, and your career will be greatly helped.
Find out more career improvement tips on our library.